Coaching and Mentoring Training

Today I attended a training course on coaching and mentoring in preparation for supervising a therapy assistant. I found the course inspiring and motivating and thought I would note down the key take home messages before they are forgotten.

Personal performance

·   Interrogate you’re successes – what are you good at, what has gone well, why?

·   1%’s - Improve the most important areas of you’re work by small amounts e.g. the top 5 areas by small amounts. E.g. the British cycling team take pillows with them to improve their sleep – small improvement – large impact.

·   Happiness – workforces are proven to be more effective if happier – therefore spread positive energy. 10:5 – if within ten feet of a colleague give eye contact and smile, 5ft – eye contact smile and say hello. Tell patient’s/families your name.

·   Act as if……. – Act as if you are the best form of yourself e.g. in an interview act as if you are an SLT with 3 years experience not as if you are an interviewee with 4 hours experience. This is based on the psychological principle that you always become the way you act. Therefore approach things with a positive inner voice

·   G.O.B’s – Glimpses of brilliance – record your successes i.e. glimpses of brilliance and refer back to these when acting as if… Record what you saw, what happened and what this made you feel.

·   Avoid mood hoovers – people who are negative and bring your enthusiasm/ the teams enthusiasm down.

Model for achieving goals

·   You need skills, knowledge, desire and confidence.

Coaching – facilitating people to empower themselves. Use the GROW model.

GOAL -  ask why? Five times to get to the true motivations of the person. Visualise/be specific.

REALITY – where are you now?

OPTIONS – how can you achieve this? G.O.B – when have you achieved something similar.

WHATNOW/NEXT – SMART goal

Tips for using this model

·   Have the person you are coaching write down their goals in their own words in order to take ownership of them.

·   Managing involves telling others what to do, coaching involves facilitating others to gain self awareness and structure their goals.

·   Trust – you need to gain the persons trust (relationship building) and show that you care enough to want to help them.

·   G.O.B’s – find examples of them demonstrating key behaviours e.g. being assertive with their children – then relate that to being assertive at work and have them Act as if…

·   Learn what people’s motivators are.

Reflection on the training day

I felt empowered by the training day. I felt that I was familiar with the skills and tools taught but needed reminding of why we use them and how to motivate myself and others. I felt that I really took away how the way that you feel about a task/ the way that you approach it really affects the potential outcome. I also felt that I need to record, memorise and analyse my successes so that I can replicate and extend them.